Sunday, January 8, 2012

What is Chakra and did the Ancient Egyptians practice it - part 2

Chakra as we know it is a Hindu/Buddhist concept but, the ancient Egyptians certainly believed in the idea of Karma they called it Ma' at.

I should be taking therapy or medication. But, I'm happy to stand by that statement.

Anyway, I had a theory about Akenhaton and Moses (another thread;-). So, I went in search of some info to Egypt to see things for myself. After travelling from France through Europe and down through Turkey, Kurdistan and the Levant I got to Egypt. I took a cruise on the Nile and was lucky enough to meet a group of people lead by a couple of very clued up Egyptian Coptic Christians. They introduced me to Chakra. They believed that the Ancient Egyptians practiced a form of Chakra.

They were about to start travelling up the Nile on this cruise and asked if I'd be interested in joining them in doing Chakra energising rituals in the Temples along the way at Sunrise or Sunset.....My first question, Oh yeah right, How much?. Nope, they didn't want a penny but just wanted to share this with me. So, for about 9 days we did this Chakra thing along the Nile. AWESOME.

Let me turn on the light for you.

I had just visited Abu Simbel, which rises up high above Lake Aswan, to see the Temples of Ramses and his royal wife, Nefertari. These sites represent the balancing of male and female energies. I did not know this whilst there.

It began in Aswan

Aswan, a major city with Elephantine Island and the Temple of Hathor, is considered the Root Chakra. The main god of Aswan is Khnum, the ram-headed god — the god of creation who sits on the potter's wheel and forms and makes individuals out of clay. It is said when visiting Aswan, many people experience what we might call "a new birth". I did as I met local people, Nubians and went to a wedding with the Drums going it was awesome. I was with the Nubians, the ancient Kushites dancing round fires and chanting. (Yes I).

We go North from Aswan, to Ko Mombo — at the Navel Chakra. This temple is dedicated to two gods, Sobek and Ra Hr Akhty. Sobek is the crocodile god, representing the lower self, and the god Ra Hr Akhty — Horus Who Is In the Horizon (or heaven) — represents the Higher Self. Here in Ko Mombo we can see the struggle between the higher and lower selves written on the temple walls.

There's a crypt where people used to swim with the crocodiles to overcome your fear and negativity. The inscriptions I was told mention the god Imhotep, whom the ancient Egyptians considered to be the god of medicine. There are loads of pictures on the floor which show people seeking healing.
Always North Edfu — still in the area of the Navel Chakra — struggle of good and evil. The story involves Isis, Osirus, Set, and Horus. When Osirus was killed by his brother Set over the kingship of Egypt, Horus, the son of Osirus, took over the job of getting rid of his evil uncle, Set.

In the story on the walls of the temple, the god Thoth, the god of science and intelligence, is reading a rolled papyrus. Behind the god Thoth is the god Horus, and behind Horus, his mother, Isis, who is lifting his arm as a sign of support.
They outlined Horus in a boat, with Set being represented by a crocodile. Horus is trying to stab the crocodile with a spear. In further scenes, the crocodile takes on another form, that of a hippopotamus. Horus tries to kill the hippopotamus.

Then the hippopotamus becomes a pig under water. What! A pig can't live under water, So it must have a hidden meaning. In the end, Horus overcomes the pig and takes the pig to an altar. There we see the pig chained the High priest holding a knife, but the knife is not at the neck of the pig — it is at its back. This is a metaphor on how you can get rid of your negativity — the evil side — on the altar.

They explained to me If you kill an animal, You kill it by cutting the artery at the jugular or the left front leg.
But in the Temple we see that the high priest has chained the pig, the pig is standing, and the knife is pointed at the back. It was a metaphor saying you can get rid of your sins on an altar......I didn't quite believe that one.
So, they said when you sin, what do you do? You go to an altar, and you confess.
You go to an altar, to a special place to connect to God, and acknowledge what you have done. Many of the temples had an altar in the Holy of Holies.
After the naval we move on to Luxor — or Thebes, as it was called. This is the Solar Plexus Chakra. Again, we see the struggle between the higher and lower energies.

Luxor temple represents people who were partying and drinking. We see the temple's residents living in big palaces, and being more into the carnal life than the spiritual world. Luxuries of life but were far away from God. The high priests were using the people to gain wealth and to elevate their own egos.

Now we come to El Amarna and Akenhaton/Nefertiti and the high priests were abusing the people. Akenhaton became angry about the corruption and decided to move the center of his kingdom to another place. In the texts it says that the Pharoah went into a land that had never known sin (The Desert). There, he established six boundary steles, or sacred tablets, and he swore on these steles that he would never go back to the South meaning back to Luxor. He called the new city Akhat Aton or "the horizon of Aton." It was also called Tell El Amarna, and is the Heart Chakra.

In antiquity the sun had three names. Early in the morning it was called Kheper, which is represented by the scarab. In the middle of the day, when it was in its strongest form, the sun was called Ra. At sunset — when the sun was setting and gentle — it was called Aton. So Aton was one of the forms of the sun god. Akhnaton believed in the concept of one God and the Law of One, so he took the name from the god's form at sunset — the sun in its gentle form.

From Tell El Armarna, we go to Sakkara, which is at the Throat Chakra. It is the old capital that was called Memphis, or Mnfr — which means the "White Beautiful Wall." We know that the kings of the First, Second, and Third Dynasties built tombs in Sakkara and Abydos. Abydos was considered the Mecca of ancient Egypt. Then we travelled upto Cairo to Giza, or the Brow Chakra leaving the cruise behind.

The Giza pyramids were considered to be the center of the world, and the ancient Egyptians talked about a hidden record in the area of the Sphinx.

They showed me carvings of the Pharoah holding the crook or the HaKa. They believed that the base of the HaKa represents the Base Chakra, and that the curve of the staff ends up at the Brow Chakra, or the Third Eye. To go to the Brow Chakra, you must come close to the Crown Chakra. Some people believe that the Crook, or the HaKa, is the symbol for raising the energy up the spine.

After we are finished with the Brow Chakra, we go on to the Crown Chakra. There are two schools of thought on this. One is that the Crown Chakra is in Heliopolis. This was the city of the god Ra — the Sun God. Of course, if you raise your energy to Heliopolis, or to that level, you don't belong here on earth, you are in the Angelic Kingdom. You are with the gods, or you are a god. The Crown Chakra is also represented by the Delta itself which looks like the petals of a Lotus flower.